


Worth A Shot

by stardustbunnies



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 19:08:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8929834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustbunnies/pseuds/stardustbunnies
Summary: Grantaire doesn’t deserve Enjolras.And by “Enjolras”, he means “calls at one in the morning from county jail”.





	

Grantaire can sleep through almost anything, but as soon as he hears the first few bars of “You Are My Sunshine” (he set the song as Enjolras’s ringtone as a joke, but now he can’t listen to it anymore without becoming frustratingly wistful), he leaps out of bed at an inhuman speed, cursing under his breath. Grantaire scrambles for his phone in the dark - possibly knocking over something fragile in the process, he isn’t too sure - until he finds it in a heap of laundry and pounces on it, hitting answer with a ferocity he assumed before now was unachievable. 

“Jesus, you’re lucky I was already awake,” Grantaire mutters with carefully measured apathy. “What the fuck is going on?” 

“God, Grantaire, honestly,” Enjolras sighs. 

Grantaire feels a spark of irritation. Even when Enjolras is the one calling him in the middle of the night, Grantaire is the annoyance here. He's a moment away from hanging up, just from spite, honestly, when he realizes that Enjolras wasn’t sighing in irritation, but relief. In fact, the way Enjolras said his name was almost warm, almost fond, almost - 

Grantaire shakes his head. He doesn’t allow himself to feel delusional hope. That was Enjolras’s job.

An instant later, he realizes if Enjolras was relieved to hear him, something is seriously wrong.

“Enjolras,” he says with an edge of apprehension, “What the fuck is going on?”

“I promise to pay you back somehow,” Enjolras starts, which in no way lessens Grantaire’s worry or confusion. “Just - don’t be mad.”

“You’re calling me at one in the morning. I’m already pretty pissed, I don’t see how you could make it any worse.” 

“Okay, yeah, you’re right,” Enjolras starts, and Grantaire’s not sure what’s stranger, the fact that Enjolras just said he was right about something or the fact that Grantaire decided not to point it out.

“R, I need you, need you to - you don’t actually have to do it, but - sorry, this is really ridiculous.”

“Come on, Enjolras, spit it out.”

“Okay, yeah, you’re right,” Enjolras replies. He inhales deeply and finishes in one breath. “It-would-really-mean-a-lot-to-me-if-you-could-pick-me-up-from-jail-right-now?”

Grantaire sets down his phone and buries his face in his hands.

“...Hello?” Enjolras asks hesitantly, voice muffled. “Are you, uh, are you okay?”

Despite the circumstances, Grantaire laughs. He’s never heard Enjolras so unconfident, so lost and unsure before. At least, not since the day Grantaire signed up for some social justice club just for the hell of it and they met at the Musain. Back then, Enjolras had no idea what to make of Grantaire’s ratty hoodie and paint-splattered jeans. It took him a while to make up his mind and decide that Grantaire was a pain in the ass.

Grantaire’s first impression of Enjolras was slightly more favorable than that.

He never anticipated any late night calls from jail, though. Perhaps if he had seen it coming that day at the Musain, he would have been smart enough to turn around and never come back. 

Grantaire snorts. 

“I’m fine, Enjolras. I don’t know about you, though, considering you’re going to be sleeping in a cell tonight. Unless you figure out how to tunnel out with a spoon, that is.” He rubs his eyes and stretches. “Enjoy prison life. Don’t talk to any serial killers, they’ll just give you ideas.”

“Our prison system is not a joke, ask Cosette’s dad,” Enjolras insists. “I mean, the stories he could tell you about our broken penitentiary system -”

“Really? You’re doing this now?” At this point, Grantaire wouldn’t be surprised if defending prisoners’ rights was just one of Enjolras’s natural reflexes.

“Justice never sleeps.” 

Grantaire smiles and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, I do, so if you’re going to keep being snarky, I’m going back to bed.”

“Wait!” Enjolras almost shouts. “R, please - please come over here.” 

Grantaire flinches at his panicked tone. In all his years of ABC meetings, Grantaire hadn’t once heard Enjolras sound like he didn’t know exactly how to save the world in nine easy steps.  
(“I don’t think ‘complete social revolution’ counts as an easy step, Apollo,” Grantaire remembered saying. Enjolras had glared at him, but he eventually agreed to divide it into two easy steps.) 

Enjolras is either really desperate, really tired, or a depressing combination of both.

Grantaire sighs. “Look, I was just kidding. I’ll be there, okay? Just give me a few minutes.” 

“Thank you, R. Good night,” Enjolras answers, breathing a sigh of relief. 

Grantaire grins. So far he’s only heard two of Enjolras’s sighs of relief, but he thinks they’re distinctly different from his normal, irritated kind. They’re softer, somehow. 

“Sleep tight,” Grantaire says. “Don’t let the dementors bite.”

“Grantaire, kiss.”

“Um, sorry, what?” 

“I mean, it would be more accurate to say don’t let the dementors kiss. Although, that kind of sounds like they’re kissing each other, so I guess for clarity it would be necessary to-”

Grantaire hangs up and takes a deep breath. Then he starts searching his floor for clean clothes.

As he fumbles for his green hoodie, Grantaire makes a mental list of what the ABC was likely doing when Enjolras called. Combeferre’s probably still at his desk, poring over his biomedical textbook and downing a seventh cup of coffee. Cosette is at home with her dad, although there’s no guarantee - Valjean would never let her go anywhere after midnight, but she had her ways. Feuilly is getting well deserved sleep after his shift at the department store, Marius is out of town visiting his grandpa, Eponine is lurking the streets, doing whatever Eponine does at night on her own. But unless Bahorel, Jehan, Joly, Bossuet, and Courfeyrac were all dead, Grantaire couldn’t see why Enjolras called him. 

Enjolras wouldn’t turn to Grantaire for anything even if someone was holding a gun to his head. Grantaire could even see Enjolras turning to Musichetta before him, and the only time Enjolras had even seen Musichetta was when he accidentally walked in on her and Joly and Bossuet doing something that made him blush for weeks. Sure, they weren’t all ideal choices– Bahorel was probably out doing something to aggravate the police at this very moment and Bossuet was usually too tired to function after ten thirty – but Grantaire was Grantaire, and that was enough to make him Enjolras’s last choice. Or at least, it should have been.

Grantaire grabs his keys and shrugs. Maybe they were all dead; after all, everyone in the ABC was bound to martyr themselves for some cause or another eventually. Liberty or equality or whatever. 

Honestly, Grantaire shouldn't have been surprised at all that Enjolras had landed himself in jail. The ABC was intense, and Enjolras was no exception.

He frowns. Enjolras was a really, really intense person. Intense enough to dedicate almost all his time to the ABC. Intense enough to declare that he would die for his beliefs. Intense enough to do something worthy of an arrest. 

No, that wasn’t possible. Enjolras wasn’t capable of that sort of thing, was he?

Grantaire drives a little faster. 

When he finally pulls up to the police and steps inside, it’s just a stone-faced Enjolras and a pasty-faced policeman laughing at him so hard he can barely breathe. Grantaire is pretty sure he knows why. 

Enjolras looks ridiculous. He has smudged streaks of red warpaint under his cheeks that were probably brave and heroic in the light of day, but seem silly now under the harsh lights of his jail cell. A sign reading “L’amour c’est l’amour’ dangles loosely in his grasp, and he’s wrapped a rainbow flag around himself like a cloak. 

“Please, tell me again,” the police officer says, wiping a tear from his eye. “Tell me again what you said you think you are.”

Enjolras glares at the ground for a long moment before muttering, “Demisexual,” sending the policeman into another fit of laughter. 

“Demisexual,” the policeman enunciates slowly after regaining his breath. “Jesus, the world is insane. People can just call themselves whatever they want now for attention. Demisexual.”

“Hey, Apollo!” Grantaire interrupts. Both Enjolras and the police officer’s heads snap around to look at him. “Ready to go yet? You look cozy.”

Enjolras smiles at him brightly. “Oh, God, finally.”

Enjolras’s gaze is so unrestrainedly happy, so unlike his usual self, that Grantaire can’t help but look away. Is it too late to conclude that this was all some bizarre dream or drug-induced hallucination? Maybe he’s dreaming about hallucinating. Frankly, it’s the most logical explanation for all this. 

The policeman looks back at Enjolras with a expression of disgust and turns to Grantaire again. “Let me guess, you’re his boyfriend.”

“Babysitter, actually,” Grantaire answers. “I keep him from getting punched at the face for all his ‘avenging angel’ shit.”

The officer breaks into a smile. “I see. So you’re the sane one.”

Grantaire snorts. Nothing about tonight feels sane.

“It depends on whether you mean ‘sane’ or ‘sane by comparison’. I mean, I’m still hanging around this guy. I’m think I’m far past sanity.”

“So you hate these ridiculous protests too?”

“Oh, god, all these protests, let me tell you about all these damn protests,” Grantaire groans. He doesn’t really know what’s going on anymore, but nothing feels more secure and real than complaining about Enjolras’s revolution. 

“All of these optimistic saviors flock to the streets, trying to change the minds of dumbasses with more power than brain cells, thinking if they just shout loud enough someone’s going to wake up and hear it.” Grantaire starts, shaking his head fondly. “And we’ve got people like the leader in red over here” – he gestures towards Enjolras – “bringing every idealist with a copy of Common Sense in their hand out of the woodwork to make posters and write letters and compose highly articulate blog posts. And they wait and wait for change, change that could only come if everyone became as dedicated and passionate and incredible as they are – which is, essentially, impossible.”

“Yeah,” the policeman agrees, nodding thoughtfully. Grantaire is pretty sure he tuned out somewhere in the middle. Grantaire’s used to it; he talks a lot. It’s part of what makes him such a good verbal sparring partner for Enjolras, and also part of what makes him such an annoying ass.

“You’re a good kid,” the officer says, clapping Grantaire on the back. “I’m sorry I ever thought you were a queer. Especially a queer dating this crazy pansy.” He pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the door to Enjolras’s cell. 

Grantaire looks at Enjolras expectantly. Grantaire knew the routine: Enjolras was going to burn this guy to the ground, Grantaire was going to laugh at his ridiculous optimism, and both of them would flee the scene having left behind the world’s most confusing impression.

But – and Grantaire didn’t know it was possible to be surprised by tonight anymore – Enjolras doesn’t seem to be ascending to god mode with righteous fury. In fact, Grantaire realizes, he hasn’t said anything since Grantaire had started talking. In fact, Enjolras seems exhausted. Resigned. The way he’s holding himself, the expression on his face – Jesus, he looks almost a little like Grantaire. 

Grantaire sighs and turns back to the policeman. Might as well fight for the only thing he gave a fuck about.

“You know,” he says slowly, “I never said I wasn’t his boyfriend.”

Both Enjolras and the officer’s mouths drop open. 

“What?” the policeman hisses. “You’re - you’re a demisexual, too?”

“Bisexual, but close enough. Well – not close enough, actually. You see, bisexuality is the sexual attraction toward multiple genders--usually your own and at least one other, and if you have questions about why I’m saying “at least,” the whole “the gender binary is a social construct” thing is a talk for another day--where you’re attracted to different genders in different ways, often confused with pansexuality, which is the sexual attraction to people of any gender where attraction to each gender feels the same, while demisexuality is a sexual orientation in which someone feels sexual attraction only to people with whom they have a strong emotional bond.” Grantaire waggles his eyebrows. “And in case you’re wondering, my boyfriend and I have a very strong emotional bond.”

Enjolras grins and glances at the police officer, whose eyes are practically bulging out of his skull.

Grantaire extends his hand towards Enjolras and raises his eyebrows. Enjolras smiles, steps out of his cell, and takes it. 

“So, you see,” Grantaire continues, “there are LGBT+ kids of all stripes, pun intended, but none of them really like assholes. And you know, I think I’ve figured out a way to get to you. Protests will never get through to your thick skull, legislation will be considered oppression, ironically, and basic human decency probably wouldn’t dare to even lay a finger on you. So I’m just going to do this my way, aka, kissing Apollo here senseless in front of you.”

He turns to face Enjolras, who is looking at him with a mixture of incredulity and something that looks weirdly like amazement, before he realizes that he has no idea of Enjolras is okay with being part of this crazy plan of his. “I-I mean, if you permit it.”

Behind the two of them, the policeman says something, but none of that matters because Enjolras’s eyes are widening but he is swallowing and nodding and stepping forward and-

Grantaire resolves to apologize as soon as they step in the car, and kisses him.

Grantaire tries really hard not to think about what he’s doing, which is to say, kissing Enjolras, but it doesn’t help that it’s something that’s crossed his mind more than once or twice, and it doesn’t help that it feels like every atom in his body is vibrating, and it doesn’t help that he has the distinct impression that even if he was completely fucking up it would be so, so worth it. 

It also doesn’t help that Enjolras is, inexplicably, kissing him back. And pretty passionately, too.

When they pull away, Grantaire looks at Enjolras with shock, an expression mirrored in Enjolras’s face. Grantaire breaks Enjolras’s gaze and mentally shakes himself. 

Only then does he remember the police officer. Grantaire hopes that the kiss looked alright. It certainly felt that way. He schools his features into a hopefully convincing smirk and turns to the officer with a look of defiance in his eye. 

The policeman looks like he’s trying to form words, but no sound comes out of his mouth. A vein on his forehead is throbbing, and it looks like his head is about to explode.

Grantaire thinks it probably looked alright.

“You know what,” the officer finally manages. “You know what? It’s one thirty. It’s too late for this shit. It’s way too late for this shit. Just get out of here.”

Grantaire bows. “Gladly.” 

He pulls Enjolras’s hand (which he is still holding, somehow) out of the door and whisks him to the car. They both hop in, buzzing with adrenaline, and take off.

At least one thing about their routine was still the same: they certainly left an quite an impression.

As soon as he climbs into the passenger seat, Grantaire opens his mouth to say something, but Enjolras starts laughing, and Grantaire pauses just to listen with a helpless grin.

It suddenly occurs to Grantaire that he isn’t really sure what to say. He promised himself he was going to apologize, but considering the way that kiss actually played out, he isn’t sure he really needs to anymore. 

Enjolras kissed back. For show, probably. But, improbably, maybe...

“So, uh,” Grantaire says over Enjolras’s laughter. “How was that?”

“That was amazing, you were amazing,” Enjolras replies breathlessly. “You totally convinced him. How did you talk like that? I thought you hated labels.”

It takes Grantaire a moment to realize he’s talking about his rant rather than the kiss. He coughs, embarrassed. He wasn’t sure what he actually expected or wanted Enjolras to say, but he should have known that whatever it was that he expected and whatever it was that he wanted would never align.

“You know, I just copied the way you always talk at meetings,” he answers, shrugging. “You’re really loud. And really, really hard to ignore. Believe me, I try.”

“I could say the same about you.” Enjolras smiles and looks out the windshield. “You’re harder to ignore than you think, you know.”

You’re harder to ignore than you think, you know. Seriously. What the fuck is happening. Grantaire has no idea what to do or say.

Well, he has some idea. 

“Hey, Enjolras, what the fuck is happening?” Grantaire asks.

Enjolras stops smiling. “What?”

“What’s going on? Why did you call me? How did you get arrested? Look, can you just explain this whole story from the beginning?”

Enjolras is quiet for a second. 

“Well, you know about the rally,” he mumbles.

Grantaire snorts. “How could I not?”

It was all the ABC could talk about for weeks, and Enjolras was crazily passionate about it (though, ‘crazily passionate’ was Enjolras’s usual level of enthusiasm). The group spent days discussing plans and fussing over details. Everyone was so excited even Eponine admitted it was kind of cool. Joly and Bossuet made matching shirts, Feuilly took a whole day off just to help organize it; Bahorel agreed to wear glitter after losing a bet to Courfeyrac.

(“Jokes on you, I was going to do that anyway,” Bahorel had proclaimed. 

“Yeah, it’s honestly kind of my fault that I didn’t see that coming,” Courfeyrac said in response, sighing. Then he shot up again and bolted to the other side of the room. “Hey! Marius! How many poems from ‘Leaves of Grass’ do you think Jehan can recite backwards?”

Marius started and turned away from Cosette, who was sitting across from him and chatting with Combeferre. “Um...zero?”

Courfeyrac rubbed his hands together with glee. “Oh, this is going to be good.”)

“So, the protest happened,” Enjolras continues, looking dejectedly out the passenger window. “And it didn’t go very well, and there were a bunch of counter-protesters, and...”

“And you punched a guy in the face,” Grantaire finishes.

Enjolras whips around and stares at Grantaire, alarmed. “What? No! I wasn’t violent, I would never do that.”

“Yeah. Sure you wouldn’t.” If Enjolras was willing to kiss Grantaire in the name of social justice, he was certainly willing to punch someone.

“I wouldn’t!” Enjolras insists. “The insurrection must have its discipline.”

“Insurrection,” Grantaire mutters. “Okay, then what did you go to jail for?”

“Well, after the protest, I didn’t want to go home just yet, so the ABC left and I stayed behind. The whole day was just so draining – and you know I haven’t slept a lot because of rally-planning – so I fell asleep on a park bench.”

“Yeah, so? That’s not exactly illegal.”

“I was asleep for too long,” Enjolras explains. “I broke curfew.”

“Curfew?” Grantaire turns to give Enjolras an incredulous look. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I know, curfew isn’t punishable with jail time. That cop just hated me.” Enjolras tilts his head thoughtfully. “You know, I got his name, we could report this to someone –”

“No, that’s, that’s not it,” Grantaire waves off Enjolras’s explanation. “It’s just – I fucking thought you had broke some homophobe’s nose or something, and it turns out you just got arrested for the crime of being seventeen. I forgot how young you are.”

“Grantaire, our birthdays are only four months apart.”

“Exactly, you’re practically a kindergartener. You even kind of look like a kid.”

Enjolras furrows his eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

“I am wild.”

“Okay, but seriously, do you mean that?”

“Don’t worry, Apollo, you look –” Grantaire coughs. “You look fine. But none of this explained why you wanted me to pick you up.”

“Oh.” Enjolras frowns. “Was this too much? I’m sorry if this was too much, I didn’t mean to force you to do anything.”

“It’s fine. Besides, you could never force me to do anything,” Grantaire points out. He decides to not also point out that he would probably do anything for Enjolras anyway. “I just think it’s weird you didn’t call someone you actually liked.”

“What? I like you, Grantaire. I mean, why wouldn’t I?”

Grantaire resists the urge to goggle at Enjolras in disbelief and keeps his eyes on the road. 

“Well, you probably roll your eyes at me at least thirty times a week, we’ve fought on, like, seventy-five different fronts, you think I’m incapable of believing in anything and you hate everything I represent – “

“Wait – you – you don’t think I hate you, do you?” Enjolras cuts in sharply. “Because I don’t. I thought that was obvious. Too obvious, even.”

“Too obvious? Goddamn, you’ve really underestimated my ability to comprehend nuance.”

“I mean, honestly – I thought you hated me.”

“What the fuck?” Grantaire does choose to goggle at Enjolras this time, road safety rules be damned. “How the hell could you possibly think I hate you?”

Enjolras smirks and counts on his fingers. “For one, you probably roll your eyes at me at least thirty times a week, we’ve fought on, like, seventy-five different fronts – “

“Okay, yeah, very funny,” Grantaire grumbles. “But I don’t glare at you all the time.”

“And I don’t laugh at you all the time!”

“It’s kind of hard not to. You’re like the fucking Greek hero of social justice. A marble lover of liberty.”

“You’re not exactly easy to stop looking at, either.” Enjolras clears his throat. “Glaring at. Because you’ll say something like, I don’t know, ‘marble lover of liberty’.”

“What, am I wrong?” 

Enjolras glares at him. 

Grantaire laughs. “Dude, you’re doing it right now.”

“So are you!” Enjolras shoots back.

“Alright, fine, point made, point made way, way more than necessary. I get it, you get it, the whole goddamn world gets it: you don’t hate me. I don’t hate you. We’re making each other friendship bracelets as I speak.” 

“Yeah. Everything got resolved right on time, we’re home,” Enjolras says, pointing to a house a few feet away. “This is my stop.”

Grantaire slows to a stop in front of Enjolras’s house and kills the engine. Enjolras unbuckles his seatbelt and unlocks the door.

“Wait!” Grantaire reaches out to grab Enjolras’s arm, but quickly stuffs his hands in his pockets at the last moment. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“What?” 

“You still haven’t told me why you needed me to come that badly. I mean, if you thought I hated you, why did you even try? Why me?”

Enjolras goes quiet. In the dark, Grantaire can’t be sure, but – is Enjolras blushing? Maybe it’s just the dumb warpaint. Grantaire wishes he could just lick his thumb and reach over to rub it off. Of course, no mortal man has ever laid a hand upon Enjolras’s cheekbones, and Grantaire certainly isn’t going to be the first, but. Still. Someone has to wipe that paint off eventually. 

“Let me ask you a question first,” Enjolras starts slowly. “Why did you agree with me?”

“Agree with you? I’ve never agreed with you.”

“No, I mean, why did you pretend to agree with me back there, at the police station? Why stick up for me when you could have just done nothing?”

Why? Because he couldn’t stand to see Enjolras feeling as powerless as Grantaire felt all the time. Because he could never leave Enjolras stranded or alone. Because no matter what place, what time, Grantaire would always be there for Enjolras. Him, and whatever new cause he had decided to throw himself at. 

“Because...it was worth a shot,” Grantaire answers lamely. “That’s all.”

“Exactly.” Enjolras smiles softly. “There’s your answer.”

“Um, I think you’re still underestimating my nuance perception. You might need to elaborate on that a little more.”

“After everything that happened today, with the protest and the arrest and the policeman, I was completely miserable,” Enjolras explains, staring straight ahead as if he can see the events he describes playing out in the distance. “I was at my worst, and everything was going wrong, and I felt completely helpless. All I wanted to do was just feel a little bit more okay. And then I realized – in a world of infinite possibility, all I really wanted to do in that moment was be with you. So I called you. I knew you might be sleeping, I knew you might not come, but I called you.”

Enjolras sighs, still smiling slightly, and turns to look at Grantaire. “Because you were worth a shot.”

He hesitates for a second, as if summoning his courage, then quickly leans over and kisses Grantaire on the cheek.

The car is silent. Time seems to stop. The only light comes from the glow of the streetlights and the hazy stars.

“Well, uh, bye, then,” Enjolras says, his voice slightly quieter and higher than usual. He steps out of the car briskly and quickly starts towards his house.

Grantaire doesn’t move. He doesn’t move for a while. 

Enjolras kissed him.

Except, maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, because Grantaire had kissed him earlier, even though it was just for show, and Enjolras had kissed him back, even though that might have also been just for show, although now that he thinks about it, it probably wasn’t, and –

Grantaire explodes with laughter, longer and louder and happier than he thinks he’s ever laughed before. It feels like the sun is bursting out of his chest, and despite the heavy night, the world seems to glow.

Tonight was so weird. 

Still laughing and smiling uncontrollably, Grantaire starts his car and heads home. The night may have been extraordinary, but he can’t wait to see what the morning will bring.


End file.
